Category talk:George W. Bush administration controversies

The link for line item veto should be removed, that was removed back in 1998 by the supreme court, also the link given as a source for President Bush asking for Line Item Veto powers is broken, if it's a controversy to ask for line item veto power and a source can be cited I believe it should stay, but I hardly find this controversial 69.19.14.29 (talk) 08:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a link to the election controversies? Hanging chads and all that? Tampered-with electronic voting booths, etc. -Tubby
 * No, the electoral college voted George W. Bush into office, the popular vote didn't have anything to do with it. 144.15.255.227 04:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. --Eav 02:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Neither of those are related to the administration. One was before he took office.  The other appears to be weak allegations throughout the country against local election officials.--Tbeatty 02:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Not related to the administration? I think you should rethink that. I also believe the September 11th cover up should be included on this page. I don't mean any kind of conspiracy theory should be included, but the fact that the administration tried to hamper the investigation, flew Bin Ladens out of the country, etc certainly should be.24.215.253.143 17:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with User:Tubby and with 24.215.253.143. &mdash; goethean &#2384; 17:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Any reason why there isn't a similar page for all the Presidents in the past couple decades at least?

NPOV tag
(for current information on the current NPOV tag, scroll down to "unfair")

I tagged this article because it basically labels anything the administration does as a controversy. In addition, it includes links to articles that have almost nothing to do with the administration itself.--Jayzel 04:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Neutrality doesn't mean pandering to both sides of an issue, it means staying objectionable to the facts at hand. There is no tag needed. Fifty7 17:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed its a bad reason for NPOV. So is the below "there aren't controversy pages for other presidents" The definition of controversy is "a prolonged public dispute", of which all of these are clearly examples. "Controversy" does not imply wrongdoing, it implies that there has been substantive public discourse about possible wrongdoing, which I think is undeniable. I do think, for example, that Warren G. Harding should have his own controversy page, and perhaps Jimmy Carter, FDR, Reagan, James K. Polk, etc (any president where the the number of independent controversial issues would make the existence of a consolidated page beneficial to navigation and learning). But I'm not going to work on them, and to say that they should have to exist as prerequisites for this page to exist is inane. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.180.49.115  (talk • contribs) May 18, 2007 I have just created an account Charles HP 20:14, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Harken Energy
The following article should be linked to the "controversies" page...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_insider_trading_allegations —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.199.66.14 (talk) 23:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC).


 * That article is already a member of this category, if that is what you mean. — CharlotteWebb 00:08, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

unfair
Having a category dedicated to the controversies of one president is inherently a violation of NPOV because it makes one person seem worse by Bush being the only president that is "so bad he deserves to have a category page like this just for him." Unless the category is expanded to include controversies of all presidents, which is more encyclopedic since it gives more information or controversy pages from all other 41 presidents are made, it should be deleted. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Crd721 (talk • contribs) 00:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC).


 * Further, what happens when you do have a president whose administration is "so bad" they deserve to have a category page just like this for it? I see no problem with this page, in fact it was just what I was looking for. DelPlaya 05:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Against the proposal to delete Category:George W. Bush administration controversies The complaint is best rectifited through the creation of articles about controversies for the prior 42 presidents, which any United States history text will amply demonstrate have been in profusion, and then creating categories for those articles, not by deleting the catagory in question. President Clinton is a dandy next subjec and focus. It just happens that editors are starting from the (easy to research) present and working backwards from there. There has to be a start somewhere: for this topic, it is G.W.B.. -- Yellowdesk 04:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Yellowdesk. Keep this article and add similar articles for all presidents. Mike3k 20:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

This list is a great idea, just the sort of innovative thinking that Wikipedia was made to pioneer.

The more I think about it, it's a shame this hasn't been put together already for every president. Heck, any political leader in history, and possibly other publically notable persons could use similar lists.

If you wish to delineate between "controversy" and "scandal", that could be a legitimate distinction. Perhaps we could work on an objective definition that distinguishes between controversies and scandals, and even "mundane" controversies and "controversial" controversies -- and those "conspiracy theories" are exactly what I have in mind here. The point here should be to recognize all of these as "sociological facts" -- in other words, having a mention or an article in Wikipedia doesn't imply any endorsement of one side or another in a given controversy, story, scandal, or "conspiracy theory", but to recognize the existence of the issue as a social fact in itself. Each of these has, by its existence, already had an effect on the society. This is irregardless of the verification of the truthfulness of any charges, etc.

A couple of candidate guidelines:

1. Try to come up with classifications that can be applied to all such leaders/ personalities in a given category;

2. Try to distinguish between controversies involving policies and personnel selection;

3. Try to distinguish between controversies involving official duties versus non-official and personal life;

4. Probably the most contentious delineation would be between

A. Charges objectively or officially proven true;

B. Charges objectively or officially proven false;

C. Charges never verified officially to be either true or false.

5. For the really ambitious, perhaps Presidential controversies or scandals could be specified down to which departments or agencies are involved. In time, that could lead to a cross-reference to which departments, agencies, policies or programs have generated the most controversy or scandals; perhaps just generating such a list could uncover patterns not previously suspected. Do certain types of issues, policies or programs tend to generate certain kinds of controversial or scandalous actions? That could turn out to be at least as interesting as noting whose watch these popped up on.

Disgustedandamused 20:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Folks list in both parent and sub categories
It looks like there were/are a number of BLPs that have this category and the sub category US attorney dismissal. I tried to fix this as well as a few others that were questionable. Anyways, --Tom (talk) 16:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)